Packing on the pensions: WI reps collect state retirement on the federal dime

By M.D. Kittle and Alyssa Hertig | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON – The good people of Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District first elected Tom Petri to serve as their representative in the U.S. House in a special election in April 1979.

Times have changed in Wisconsin and national politics, but the 6th District’s representative hasn’t.

Now into his 18th term, Petri, a Fond du Lac Republican, is a fixture of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation. He also is the beneficiary of a $174,000 annual salary and will ultimately benefit from what the National Taxpayers Union calls the “single most personally valuable perk to a Member of Congress” – his federal government pension plan.

As it stands, the veteran congressman expects to earn a pension north of $100,000 per year, based on his earnings and what would be his 36 years in Congress upon the close of his latest term.

“Congressional pensions are typically 2-3 times more generous than those offered to similarly-salaried workers in the private sector, and are even more generous than pensions for most federal workers,” the National Taxpayers Union asserts on its website.

But Petri isn’t waiting to draw a federal pension. The long-serving lawmaker came to Congress after a six-year political career in the Wisconsin state Senate.

Last year, Petri collected $14,878 from his Wisconsin Retirement System pension, in which he was vested after five years of public service.

In 2011, Petri received $14,950 in legislative pension payments, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Since 2008, the congressman has pocketed some $64,000 in state legislative pension payments, according CRP, a campaign fundraising and political information tracker. Admittedly, the pension payments are a drop in the bucket for a lawmaker whose net worth, placed somewhere between $9.52 million and $45.41 million, ranks him 22th wealthiest among his House peers, according to CRP.

Petri sees nothing wrong with cashing the pension checks he rightfully earned.

“Rep. Petri simply believes that he earned his state pension through his public service in the state legislature and he has chosen to take it at this time,” Petri spokesman Lee Brooks said in an email to Wisconsin Reporter.

But to critics, the practice of congressional members drawing government pensions while building potentially hefty federal pensions stinks of double-dipping.

That’s how Petri’s fellow Wisconsin congressman, U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, sees it.

“It does smack of a bit of double-dipping,” he told Wisconsin Reporter. “That’s an increased financial burden on taxpayers.”

Read more at WisconsinReporter.com

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